


Can't Go Back

by Jingletown



Category: EXO, EXO-K - Fandom, EXO-M, Kpop - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Dystopia, EXO - Freeform, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jingletown/pseuds/Jingletown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Civilization is on its last legs. Do Kyungsoo and Byun Baekhyun have been forced to flee the safety of the cabin they'd commandeered when the world first ended. Kris Wu and Kim Junmyeon are in charge of an entire camp of scared survivors with very limited resources. Dr. Zhang Yixing is the leader of a group of desperate scientists on the Universal Disease and Catastrophe Team who will stop at nothing to find a cure and save humanity. Kim Jongdae will do whatever it takes to keep Huang Zitao away from the nightmare that awaits him inside UDACT's headquarters. </p><p>And all of them are running out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nine months before, Baekhyun invited Kyungsoo for drinks after work and Kyungsoo’s exact words had been, “Baekhyun, I wouldn’t be your friend if we were the last two men on earth.”

Now, both guys sat in a rusted, 1999 Silverado, sharing a warm, half-empty bottle of Jose Cuervo, and Kyungsoo almost laughed. They weren’t the very last two men on earth but, damn, it sure felt like it.

It had been weeks since they’d seen anyone besides each other and Kyungsoo was getting sick of looking at his partner’s face. For over a year, they worked at an upscale restaurant in Montclair called The Pavilion, Baekhyun as a busboy and Kyungsoo as a sous chef. (Baekhyun had Kyungsoo’s number saved in his phone as _Soo Chef_ but Kyungsoo didn’t find it half as funny as he did.) Much to Kyungsoo’s dismay, they’d even lived in neighboring apartment buildings. They’d bump into each other outside of work, at the market or the liquor store, and Baekhyun would always make a big fuss like he’d run into his best friend.

Still, in a town of nearly 40,000, there was variety. There was endless potential for socialization and culture. Kyungsoo took foreign language classes at the community college, led a book club at the local library and attended open mic nights at his favorite pub. Seeing Baekhyun both in and out of work got annoying but Kyungsoo loved his job and loved him community. He was a quiet, private guy but he was an extrovert in his own weird way.

He loved being around people.

And then M51 happened, a disease that the Swedes who discovered it nicknamed Death Fever. It wasn’t hard to spot someone who’d been infected – they were pale and sweaty with dark, sunken eyes. Their temperature spiked as they hit the twelfth hour of the virus and the high fever caused sweating and shaking. By hour fourteen, they were seizing and coughing up blood.

After hour fifteen, something went wrong. One of the Swedish doctors described it as brain damage but from the footage Kyungsoo had seen online, it was more like the infected person became feral, an angry, rabid animal taking over their otherwise human body. They were violent, belligerent, easily-agitated. They scratched and bit and snarled, clawing at anything and anyone that was nearby and usually infecting whoever crossed their path. Their eyes and skin turned a sickly yellow and they bled from their nose and ears.

No one made it past the twenty-fourth hour.

M51 was highly contagious and people were dropping like flies. The power grid had gone down sometime in the spring and so Kyungsoo had no way of knowing what the death toll was. Last he’d heard, fifteen-million people had already succumbed to Death Fever just in North America. Worldwide, the number was closer to two-hundred million.

That was six months ago.

Without electricity, the country fell into madness.

With no light, no refrigeration and no source of dependable news, chaos was inevitable.

The Pavilion closed down just weeks after Death Fever started gaining traction, the owner not wanting a thing to do with the virus when CNN listed restaurants as one of the most dangerous public places. It meant that Kyungsoo and Baekhyun were out of a job but they were young, single guys without any serious living expenses and that meant that they had savings to fall back on.

And that was the first time Kyungsoo willingly reached out to Baekhyun. It was the first time Kyungsoo had ever texted him first. A few weeks before the electricity went out, Kyungsoo sent Baek a message and asked if he had enough food and water. Baekhyun was the type of guy who could fix a car engine with a butter knife and a spool of thread but he’d also once left a tea kettle on the stove at work and wandered off when he saw a cat out by the dumpster, starting a small fire that Kyungsoo had to extinguish to keep them both from getting canned.

He was intelligent but he was spacey and he seemed like the type to forget to stockpile.

 _I’ve been bottling water like I’m preparing for a marathon_ , Baekhyun had texted back. _But I’m not exactly swimming in canned goods. Are we making a market run?_

 _Yes_ , Kyungsoo replied. _But not at the usual grocery store. We need to go somewhere with less people. Maybe Verona or Cedar Grove?_

From that moment on, they were partners. Maybe they’d never be best friends the way Baekhyun wanted but they were partners. They split everything fifty-fifty. They watched each other’s backs. Inexplicably, they were a great time. They were bright and competent but in the exact opposite ways. Where Baekhyun was resourceful and creative, Kyungsoo was thoughtful and quick on his feet. Baek’s street smarts and inventiveness paired with Kyungsoo’s book smarts and level head made them an incredibly competent pair and their opposites-attract style of teamwork was what had kept them alive for so long.

Things went from bad to worse in June. It was like the heat of the impending east coast summer pushed the entire state into lunacy. People were fighting – in food stores, in pharmacies, in the streets. They rioted, looted, lit fires. It was like everyone had simultaneously decided to give up. With so many people dying each day, it hardly seemed worth it to keep fighting.

But nothing would deter Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.

They packed up Baekhyun’s pickup truck with all the food and water they could carry, each resigning themselves to one backpack of clothes and any personal items they couldn’t live without. Kyungsoo grabbed his favorite book, the watch his father had given him and his grandmother’s ring. Baekhyun packed his grandfather’s dog tags, his signed Derek Jeter ball and a deck of cards.

They weren’t naïve, though. They knew they needed weapons. Neither of them had grown up in a house with guns, though Baekhyun’s father had taught him and his brother to shoot when they were kids. Kyungsoo armed himself with a hammer and Baekhyun with an aluminum baseball bat. On the way out of Jersey, they stopped off in a bad neighborhood where Baekhyun had connections and they traded a case of food for twin Glocks and a little ammunition.

And then they drove.

It took them over a month to find the cabin. If they’d known where they were going and if the roads were in better condition, it probably would’ve taken them fifteen or sixteen hours to get there.

But in thirty-seven days, they’d made it from Montclair, New Jersey to the Pennsylvania wilderness. They’d stumbled upon the cabin by accident, an unfortunate roadblock and a vicious group of infected citizens causing them to take a harsh detour into the woods.

The bumpy, dirt path was barely wide enough for Baek’s truck to pass through but with some careful maneuvering, they ended up in a clearing wide enough for a good, old fashioned log cabin.

They were just outside Allegheny National Forrest, an expanse of beautiful foliage that was popular among tourists and campers. Kyungsoo just assumed it was someone’s vacation home, a small but sturdy cottage for when they needed to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

It was rustic in a way that almost seemed crude, the walls inside a rough, unfinished red cedar. The ceilings were fairly low and the cabin itself only boasted three rooms – a bedroom (with bunk beds and a chest of drawers), a living room (with a couch, a bookcase, and a radio rested on an end table) and a kitchen (with a table, two dining chairs, a cupboard and wood-burning stove).

It was dusty as hell and the air was still and stale. If it _was_ somebody’s vacation home, they hadn’t visited in a while. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo agreed to hunker down and spend the night, sure that they would take off before the cabin’s owner showed up and forced them out. But suddenly, one night became two nights and that became a week and a week became a month and somehow, the cabin became their home.

They shared the bedroom, Kyungsoo on the top bunk and Baekhyun on the bottom, and went on runs to find food to fill their cabinets. There was an outhouse behind the cabin that took care of all their bathroom needs and there was even a stream deep enough to bathe in about a half mile west.

For three months, that was their home.

Most of their time was spent exploring, searching, sometimes fruitlessly, for supplies. They found abandoned campsites, digging through RVs and siphoning gas before crawling into forgotten tents and stealing clothes and blankets. Sometimes they got lucky and found coolers and knapsacks filled with graham crackers, protein bars and water bottles.

For three months, it was all about survival.

Surviving and waiting.

When they weren’t searching for provisions, they were sitting around. They both did what they could to stay in shape, using the empty space in the living room to do pushups and sit-ups before breakfast. Baekhyun liked to play solitaire by candlelight while Kyungsoo sat by the window and read. Whoever owned the cabin had yet to show up and Kyungsoo just assumed that he was dead.

Come to think of it, Kyungsoo just assumed that everyone was dead. His friends, his family, his coworkers, the guys in his book club, that cute girl from open mic. He was a pessimist. He naturally assumed the worst and with something like Death Fever taking such a bite out of humanity, the only logical guess was that most of his people were gone.

And so he had to worry about himself.

He had to worry about himself and Baekhyun.

According to the pocket calendar that Kyungsoo kept (he was already worried about keeping track of the days if he survived until next year), it was August 2nd when they were forced to flee.

They had just gotten down to the stream for a bath when they heard voices. They weren’t pleasant, curious voices either. These were aggressive, unforgiving voices, speaking harsh words in even harsher tones. That was how it happened sometimes. The boys had learned quickly that men who were once good and reasonable could become wild, coldblooded savages. It was the price of survival, Kyungsoo figured, and he often wondered if it was only a matter of time before he and Baekhyun lost their humanity.

They’d run into some problems before. Once, while casing what used to be a community center, Baekhyun had been accosted by some teenage thugs who wanted to know where he stayed and who he traveled with. That seemed like a common line of questioning. No one traveled alone those days. If you saw one person, there were probably four more you didn’t see. And that was a dangerous game to play.

When Baek refused to give anything up, the biggest guy knocked him on his ass. By the time Kyungsoo got involved, two of the others were standing over Baekhyun, kicking him in the ribs while their leader laughed. Kyungsoo fired a warning shot in the air and then, when everyone was nice and scared, he forced the brutes to give up their own weapons before chasing them off into the woods.

From then on, they were incredibly careful.

God, Kyungsoo missed people. But his only obligation was to Baekhyun. And so when they heard those rough voices talking about all the cabins and campsites in that neck of the woods, they knew it was time to go. They would miss their small fortress but goddamn, it was time to move on.

They packed up everything they’d acquired in those months – jerky, granola bars, cookies, canned vegetables, bottled water, the thugs’ weapons, clothes, blankets and even some of Kyungsoo’s favorite books. Before they took off, Kyungsoo cast a loving stare at his top bunk.

He was sure going to miss that bed.

They had the cabin emptied and the Silverado’s bed full in less than ten minutes and then they were gone, hauling ass down that jarring, narrow trail and bolting from the safety of their familiar, beloved homestead.

“Where do we go now?” Baekhyun asked. They’d parked the truck a couple miles away, shrouded in the safety of shadows and overgrown shrubbery. His hands were on the wheel but his eyes were on Kyungsoo. As far as Baek was concerned, Soo was the leader. He may have been younger but he was _always_ the leader.

Kyungsoo ran a hand through his unruly hair. Another thing he missed? Besides coffee and hot showers and cable television? Haircuts.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, shifting down in his seat so that his knees were against the dashboard. He reached into the bag that he’d left by his feet and produced a bottle of tequila. He twisted off the top, took a swig and handed it to his friend, smiling as he remembered how many invitations from Baekhyun he’d turned down in the past. A year ago, he wanted to throttle him and now, he couldn’t imagine a single day without him. “But I bet we’ll know it when we see it.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Are they… _barbequing_?”

It wasn’t the first commercial campsite they’d found and Kyungsoo was sure it wouldn’t be the last. But the difference between this and the last KOA campground they’d stumbled upon was that this one was well-populated with living, breathing people.

And these people were grilling.

There were RVs, tents, cars, trucks, sleeping bags and picnic tables all spread out over an area about the size of a football field. Kyungsoo didn’t know how many people were inside or off on runs but he counted eight men, six women and seven children moving around the grounds. The adults seemed to be working, some of them washing clothes in a metal basin, some of them helping prepare what looked like dinner. The kids were playing soccer behind one of the RVs.

“Whatever they’re grilling,” Baekhyun said, “it smells delicious.”

They were crouching in a bush on the perimeter, dirtying the knees of their pants as they squinted and stared. The man behind the grill was tall, blonde and steely. Something about the way he carried himself made Kyungsoo think that he was probably the leader. Every group had one, some good, some bad. But this man stood with his back straight and his head high. He was the only one manning the grill and every so often, one of the other members of the group approached him and appeared to ask him a question.

“We need to over there,” Kyungsoo said and Baek looked at him like he’d just started speaking French.

“Are you nuts?” he asked. “There’s thirty of them and two of us. And neither of us are that big.” He gestured to the man at the grill. “That guy’s big.” He pointed to another tall man, this one with dark hair, who was sitting at one of the picnic tables. “That guy’s big.” A third man was standing on top of one of the RVs, probably on lookout. “That guy’s big.”

“I get it,” Kyungsoo said. “They’re big. But we don’t have enough gas or food to keep wandering aimlessly. Maybe they can give us directions.”

“Directions to what?” Baekhyun asked, exasperated. “What are you expecting, Soo? That these nice people will look at two grungy strangers and point them to the nearest Holiday Inn?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Kyungsoo snapped and when Baekhyun didn’t, he nodded. “Then it looks like we’re going with my plan.”  
Kyungsoo moved to stand up and Baekhyun grabbed his arm.

“Let’s at least try and look presentable,” Baekhyun said with an exhausted sigh. He knew they were filthy. They hadn’t been able to take a bath since the cabin. Their hair was greasy and much too long for either of them to feel like themselves. There was dirt on their faces from the last campsite they’d crawled through and thanks to the August heat, their shirts were drenched with sweat.

Baekhyun used his hands to try to tame Kyungsoo’s hair and he pulled a bandana from his pocket to wipe his friend’s face.

“It’s a good thing you can’t grow a beard,” Baek teased, giving Soo’s cheek a light slap. “You’d look like a caveman.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Kyungsoo said. He took a deep breath and then stood up. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Kris?”

The voice came from the walkie-talkie in Kris’ shirt pocket.

“Yeah, Sehun?”

“You see ‘em, right?”

Kris looked up at Sehun who was standing on top of Chanyeol’s motor home. The dark-haired boy had binoculars in one hand and the walkie in the other. On his back was a rifle with a long-range scope. The boy nodded his chin towards a patch of shrubbery on the edge of the property.

“I see ‘em,” Kris said. He did his best to be inconspicuous, his eyes focused on the grill. The last thing he wanted to do was cause a panic. He was in charge because he was calm and collected but he was also at the helm because he was so alert and mindful. Even with his mind on dinner, he’d seen the rustle in the bushes. He’d seen movement and the hair on the back of his neck had been standing up ever since.

Someone was there.

It could have been something or someone harmless. Wildlife wandered onto the property all the time. Hell, the only reason they’d be eating so well that night was because Chanyeol had managed to trap a deer near the lake. It was possible that it was a raccoon or some other furry friend just looking for its next meal. (When civilization broke down the way it had, the entire ecosystem suffered. Birds and rodents were just as hungry as Kris was.)

More likely, though, it was something more sinister.

People were cruel those days. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was angry. Everyone was desperate. It wouldn’t be the first time that Kris had to deal with starving ruffians and all he could do was pray that whoever was in the bushes wasn’t infected.

He could deal with busting some heads and tossing people off his land but God, he could not risk mixing it up with someone who might be sick.

“What do you want me to do?” Sehun’s voice on the walkie was calm and steady, two of the reasons that Kris had put him on watch.

“Nothing,” Kris said, shooting a smile at one of the kids who was gawking at him. When the little boy didn’t smile back, Kris stuck his tongue at him and the kid ran away giggling. “I’ll handle it.” He slipped the walkie back into his pocket and flipped a piece of meat that was starting to burn.

It wasn’t until Suho and Chanyeol had begun handing out dinner plates that Kris actually had the culprit in his sights.

Slowly, a boy rose from behind the bush. He wasn’t very big, both shorter and thinner than Kris, though he looked to be about the same age. His clothes, a camouflage t-shirt and cargo pants, were dirty and as soon as he saw Kris, he raised his hands over his head.

Confused but somehow impressed, Kris started walking towards him, completely thrown off guard when a second boy of the same size popped up from behind the shrubbery.

“We mean you no harm,” said the boy in the camo. “We come in peace.” The other boy rolled his eyes.

“They’re not aliens, Kyungsoo.”

The first boy – Kyungsoo – shot his friend a look.

“He has a baseball bat,” Kris observed sternly by the time they were about five feet apart. The second boy seemed dirtier, his jeans stained with blood and soil and his tan t-shirt ripped at the breast. Because of the bat, he was only able to raise one hand but Kris had to admit, these guys didn’t look like a threat.

“And I have a gun,” Kyungsoo said seriously. “It’s tucked into the back of my pants.”

Kris raised an eyebrow, bracing his arms behind his back,

“You come in peace but you’re armed?”

The second boy shot Kyungsoo an _I-told-you-so_ kind of glance but Kyungsoo didn’t falter. The boy had a slight build and soft features, his wide eyes and full lips making him look completely harmless, but there was something in his voice and the way he carried himself that told Kris he was stern and intense. He probably wasn’t a threat but it was possible that he could be an asset. Though it wasn’t often that his group came across people with their humanity still intact, remarkably, Kris held out hope that there were people like him out there.

“We’re armed because we had to park our truck and walk,” Kyungsoo explained, his smooth voice completely steady. He wasn’t afraid of Kris. The same couldn’t be said for the second boy who was gripping the bat so hard that Kris was worried his knuckles might split. But Kyungsoo, however small, carried himself like a man and a fearless one at that.

On the few occasions that people did show up to their camp uninvited, they were hostile and violent. They had every intention of robbing Kris’ group blind and it took brute force and a whole lot of bullets to scare them away. And because of Kris’ position as leader, he’d developed the keenest of instincts. If something was wrong, he knew it. He could smell trouble away and if someone was liable to start shit, a dozen different alarm bells rang out inside his head.

But these guys just weren’t setting any off.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Kyungsoo said as if he’d read his mind. He’d lowered his hands some but still head them cautiously near his head. “We don’t want anything but directions. We’re running low on gas and we can’t squander what little we have left just driving around. Is there any place safe around here? A refugee center? Anything?”

Kris narrowed his eyes.

“Are you guys hungry?”

“No,” Kyungsoo said.

“Yes!” his friend said, louder.

Kyungsoo shot him a look.

“Baekhyun,” he barked under his breath.

“What? We _are_ hungry?”

“Look,” Kris said with a sigh, “there is no refugee center. That fell sometime in April or May. We might be as good as you’re going to get for the next hundred miles. And for the first time in a long time, we actually have extra food.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said Baekhyun, lowering his hands and taking the few steps to close the gap between him and Kris. Switching the bat to his left hand, he held out his right to shake. “Byun Baekhyun. Nice to meet you.”

“Kris Wu.” Baekhyun’s handshake was casual but when Kyungsoo reluctantly stepped up to Kris, his handshake was firm and authoritative. This guy might have been small but he knew exactly who he was.

“Kyungsoo,” he said.

“Come on,” said Kris. He nodded his chin back to camp where dinner was in full swing. “Let’s eat.”

* * *

They ate like newly freed prisoners that night, neither Kyungsoo nor Baekhyun realizing how hungry they’d been since being forced to ration their meals. Ever since they’d raided that movie theater on the outskirts of town, they’d been living off stale tortilla chips and chocolate-covered peanuts.

The members of Kris’ camp, all fairly clean and fairly young, went about their evening as normal, occasionally shooting curious glances towards the picnic table that held their leader and two strangers.

“How’d you end up here?” Kyungsoo asked. He had a paper plate of venison and a plastic cup filled halfway with red Gatorade. He was even in the presence of new people. For once, things were looking up and Kyungsoo had to fight the urge to worry. He wanted to allow himself to enjoy what they’d stumbled upon but he didn’t want to be naïve.

But more than anything else, he just wanted to talk to people.

“Church trip gone wrong,” Kris said with a shrug. “We left Koreatown in April, hell-bent on seeing the spring festival they hold in that state park not far from here.” The sun was sinking in the sky casting shadows over the campsite. The kids had finished their dinner and had gone back to playing soccer and their lively shouting could be heard from all corners of the property.

“You weren’t concerned about Death Fever?” Baekhyun asked, his mouth full of food.

Kris looked regretful.

“We were naïve,” he admitted. “We thought that nothing would happen to us, that God would protect us.” He shrugged his wide shoulders and used his left hand to tousle his blonde hair. It was clear that he was troubled but there wasn’t anyone wandering around those days without their share of demons. A slight dark side was hardly something to raise alarm and so Kyungsoo didn’t give it a second thought. “Mistakes were made,” Kris went on. “That’s just how it goes. But we’ve learned a lot since then.”

“So you’re from Koreatown?” Kyungsoo asked when an uncomfortable silence filled the air.

“I’m actually from Yonkers,” he said. “I worked in the city and met a guy who just couldn’t leave Manhattan and here we are.”

“Hey!” a voice called and all three of them turned to see a short, well-built brunette approaching the table. He smiled brightly and took the seat next to Kris, hooking his arm around his waist. “You talking shit about me?”

“Always,” said Kris, smirking before they kissed.

Before anyone could react, the brunette turned to Kyungsoo and Baek, grinning.

“Hi,” he said cheerfully. “I’m Kim Junmyeon but you can call me Suho.” He turned back to Kris. “You giving them the full story?”

“Trying to,” Kris said. His eyes, formerly hard and imposing, now held a lot of love.

“Kris is shit at telling stories,” Suho said. He was the first person Kyungsoo had seen wearing a jacket. With the sun on its way down and the wind blowing, it was a little cool but it was still August and so the air was thick. “If you want the real story, you talk to me.”

“What’s the real story?” Baekhyun asked and Kyungsoo resisted the urge to slap him for speaking with his mouth full. The world may have more or less ended but they weren’t animals. Even in a fallen civilization, there was room for table manners.

“All we wanted to do was see the flowers,” Suho said. His posture had changed and he spoke with his hands, reminding Kyungsoo of a TV announcer. Where Kris was reluctant and conflicted, Suho was excited to share their story.

“Did you get to?” Baekhyun asked having finally swallowed his food. “See the flowers, I mean.”

Suho smirked, leaning forward so his elbows were on the table.

Clasping his hands, he said, “We did.” He cast a cursory look Kris’ way before locking eyes with Baekhyun. “But it wasn’t worth it.”

“We left our hotel on April 20th,” Kris said solemnly and suddenly Kyungsoo understood. April 20th was the day that the power grid went down and a lot of people considered that the official beginning of the end. “We made it halfway home and turned around. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that we weren’t going to make it back to Koreatown, at least not right away. The highways were a mess. Cars and trucks were overturned, the traffic was damn near impenetrable.” He shrugged. “No one knew what to do and there were infected people wandering in the streets.”

He glanced at Suho, clearly unwilling to finish telling the tale.

“We doubled back,” Suho explained, “tried to return to our hotel but it just wasn’t possible.” He gestured to the main entrance, a long and winding driveway that was blocked by a series of gates and fences. “Took a few wrong turns and ended up here.” He nodded his chin at another picnic table that sat twenty or so feet away, closer to the fire pit. An older couple sat on one side and two girls in their twenties – one blonde and one brunette – sat on the other. One of the taller guys that Kyungsoo had seen from the bushes was standing behind the blonde, his hands on her shoulders.

“Who are they?” Baekhyun asked.

“The Millers,” Kris said, looking back over his shoulder. “Harold and Maryann own this campsite. Those are their daughters, Eleanor and Holly, and that’s Eleanor’s boyfriend, Chanyeol.”

“They took pity on us,” Suho continued. “A bunch of good, God-fearing people with no way to get back to Manhattan? They said we could stay as long as we pulled our weight. Their power was out, too, but they still had running water and food. Most of their guests had taken off–”

“Like bats out of hell,” Kris interjected.

“–some even leaving their tents and campers behind. But there were people here gearing up for a long stay and we all banded together and formed a weird survival team.”

“So you guys live out of these tents and RVs secondhand?” Kyungsoo asked after he’d finished his last bite of food.

“Mostly,” Suho nodded. “See that bus over there?” He jerked his thumb at an old school bus painted white and red. On the side, the words _Church of Saint Nicholas_ had been spray-painted in black. “That’s where the kids sleep.”

“Kids?” Baekhyun inquired. Though he’d seen them playing, he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that there were kids growing up in this world.

“We have twelve kids under twelve,” Kris said. “Our bus has thirteen rows. Each kid sleeps in one of the three-seaters and they use the adjacent two-seater as storage. Most of these kids were traveling with us alone, their parents trusting we’d keep them safe. They all sleep together and we have two adults in the bus with them.”

Kyungsoo swallowed hard. Like Baekhyun, had a hard time thinking about children living in their new world. The ones he’d seen looked happy and well-fed but realistically, they were probably empty and terrified. He was twenty-three and still woke up in a cold sweat wondering about what became of his parents. He couldn’t imagine how that must have felt to a seven-year-old.

“Why are you letting us eat dinner with you?” Kyungsoo asked when a woman in a red dress came by with a trash bag to collect their plates. Suho and Kris exchanged a glance and Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow.

“Not that we’re not grateful,” Baekhyun said. “But nothing in life is free, right, guys?”

Nodding, Kris stood up and stretched.

“Suho, I’m gonna show these guys around, okay?”

Suho’s eyes moved between all three men at the table and then he nodded once.

“You got it,” he said and he stood on his tiptoes to kiss Kris’ lips. “I’ll see you later.”

* * *

The grand tour only took a few minutes.

The campsite was fairly large but most of it was just open land. There were a few structures – a dining hall, a game room, a camp store, an office and a small, two-story home belonging to the Millers as well as a collection of small, wooden bungalows near the lake. Kris explained that no one lived in the cabins since there was strength in numbers and everyone felt safer sleeping together in the middle of camp.

“The Millers were incredibly generous,” Kris said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked past the water’s edge. There was a bench near an empty trashcan and Kris took a seat, looking up at Baek and Kyungsoo who were wearing their best poker faces. “But I think they needed us as much as we need them.”

“They probably wouldn’t have been able to defend this whole place by themselves,” Kyungsoo inferred.

“Exactly.” When Kris looked out at the water, Kyungsoo did the same. Everything felt so still, so unusually serene. Soo couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at peace. “We do the best we can but we still need help.”

There was a pause.

“And you want our help,” Kyungsoo said finally. Baekhyun’s head snapped to look at his friend, mouth agape and his face scrunched. Clearly he hadn’t drawn the same conclusion.

“Yes,” Kris said seriously.

“Why us?”

“We need strong, young men,” Kris admitted. “At this point, we’re mostly women and children. Don’t get me wrong. A lot of these girls are badass. They can more than handle themselves. But we need someone to look after the kids. And these kids are scared. They’re away from their parents and most of them have pieced together that they’re never going to see them again. The kids feel more comfortable around the women than the men. We need guys to go on runs. And we need guys to fight.”

“And in return?” Kyungsoo’s eyes were back on Kris, staring intently at this man who seemed so mysterious but still so desperate.

“In return you can stay here,” Kris said. “We have an extra RV. You’ll have food, water, shelter, protection. If you’ve made it this far, you know how to fight. And we need that.”

There was another wordless pause. Kyungsoo half-expected to hear birds chirping but the air was as still as the water of the lake.

“What do you say?” Kris asked. “Will you do it? Will you stay?”

Kyungsoo swallowed hard. He looked at Baekhyun, studying his face for clues, but they both already knew the answer.

It was the only way.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo said. “We’ll stay.”


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Zhang Yixing rolled himself away from his desk with force, his head in his hands.

He’d been working for 26 straight hours, reading hundreds of pages of lab reports, watching crucial video of test subjects reacting to stimuli and studying various genetic code one cell at a time.

He was exhausted.

His eyes burned, his back ached and his brain begged for the sweet release of blissful unconsciousness but he couldn’t stop working. Not when he still had dozens of medical journals to read before Tuesday’s meeting. Not when he had hours upon hours of video footage that still needed reviewing. Not when he had more live subjects that needed evaluating and his reports that needed writing.

Not when there was still so much work to be done.

No, he couldn’t sleep.

At the very least, though, he thought he’d earned a breakfast break (or maybe it was time for dinner – there weren’t any windows in this wing so Yixing actually had no idea what time it was) so he tucked his chair beneath his desk and shrugged on his lab coat, Professor Luhan’s rant about professionalism and maintaining appearances fresh in his mind.

It was a bit of a walk from his lab to the kitchen, UDACT’s headquarters shaped like a giant E and featuring the labs and the dorms at opposite prongs, but Yixing didn’t mind. After so many hours spent sitting and staring at a computer screen, it felt good to stretch his legs.

Part of him, the resentful, overworked part, wished that UDACT had gone dark with the rest of the world. Air-conditioning was nice and hot water was something that he considered to be more of a necessity than a luxury but, God help him, Yixing was sick of the constant ringing in his ears, the never-ending hum of the generators, the blinding fluorescent lights and the glow of his computers.

Though he knew he wouldn’t survive a day out in the real world, Yixing felt with every fiber of his being that he _should_ be out in the trenches with the rest of the survivors.

“If you were out there,” Luhan had said once when Yixing drank too much and started rambling about his existential crisis, “who would be in here working on the cure?”

He wasn’t wrong. It was due to Yixing’s contributions that UDACT had made any progress at all. But that had done nothing to quell Yixing’s guilt.

In fact, his progress, which was, in the grand scheme of things, pretty huge, was one of things weighing on him.

Thanks to Yixing, the worlds’ surviving geneticists understood the way M51 worked. Without him, they’d still be in the dark, guessing and speculating about the disease that had, at the very least, wiped out half the population so far. But Yixing had, at least somewhat, cracked some of the genetic code and his research helped explain how the virus mutated and how exactly it spread.

A cure was still a long ways off but thanks to Yixing, it almost seemed like humanity had a chance.

But it just wasn’t enough.

Not to Yixing. Not after nine months. Not when so many people were dead and dying.

Not yet.

He reached the kitchen, just as white and brightly-lit as the rest of UDACT’s facilities, and went directly for the mugs above the sink. There were packets of instant coffee in a box on the counter and though he missed his Keurig like a phantom limb, Yixing was truly thankful for caffeine however he got it.

Wondering if it would be more efficient to just snort the Folgers power right off the countertop, Yixing moved to the chair closest to the AC vent. He’d always run a little hot but with the stress of his newest project, he was sweating like a whore in church and if it kept up, he was worried he might dehydrate.

He stretched and his back popped like bubble wrap. He knew he needed a break. Even computers needed to rest sometimes lest they overheat and crash.

But he couldn’t.

Not yet.

Not with a new test subject on the way, a specimen that could potentially change everything they knew about this virus and save millions of lives.

Like he’d heard his thoughts from down the hall, Kim Jongin entered the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge. Jongin, an intelligent, competent biologist who’d graduated with Yixing was currently working as a communication liaison between all of UDACT’s active locations. UDACT was a worldwide organization and though they’d lost touch with their New Zealand and Tokyo offices, most of their sites were still up and operational.

And if you needed information on any of them, Kim Jongin was the man to see.

As it happened, he was also one of Yixing’s only true friends at UDACT.

“Jongin,” Yixing greeted dully. “You’re up late.”

The younger man snorted.

“It’s 10 at night, hyung.” Yixing’s cheeks reddened slightly. He really had been losing track of time. “Have you been to bed yet?”

He shook his head.

“Too much to do.” Jongin pulled a banana from the low-humidity drawer and took the seat across from Yixing.

“I know that look, Lay,” Jongin said, using Yixing’s old med school nickname and narrowing his eyes. “What’s on your mind?”

“What’s Alpha Team’s ETA?” Yixing asked and Jongin smiled.

“All work and no play, Yixing,” said Jongin. He took a bite of his banana and chewed, carefully studying Yixing. “When was the last time you slept?” Yixing didn’t bother replying and Jongin merely sighed. “Subject 117 should be here by Thursday morning. They’ve scheduled transport from Montreal to begin Wednesday evening.”

“They’re traveling at night?”

Jongin rolled his eyes.

“They know that they’re doing, Lay.”

“For their sake, I hope you’re right,” Yixing mumbled, his hands wrapped around his cup.

On the front of the ceramic mug were the five letters that were at the bane of Yixing’s existence.

**UDACT**

UDACT was printed on the mug and the plates and appliances and Yixing’s computer and desk and chair and lab coat. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised to wake up one morning and find that the acronym had been tattooed across his chest while he slept.

The Universal Disease and Catastrophe Team owned him.

And soon, they – _he_ – would own Subject 117.

That was what Luhan had told him anyway. It was Yixing’s field of study and, therefore, completely his prerogative. He’d been the head of division before the world ended and now, the weight of this disease was completely his burden to bear. With that crushing responsibility, of course, came some privilege. He was given unlimited funds and resources, not to mention shelter in one of the most secure facilities outside of Washington D.C. He even had his own armed guard.

But regardless of the perks, gentle, anxious Zhang Yixing was shitting bricks over the fact that this was entirely on him – the research, the studies, the lab, the cure, Subject 117.

They were all his.

“Get some rest, Lay,” Jongin said, his voice tearing Yixing from his thoughts. Having finished his banana while Yixing was daydreaming, Jongin rose and tossed the peel into the hands-free trashcan. Slapping his shoulder on the way out, he said, “I’ll see you at the meeting Tuesday.”

It was another half hour before Yixing realized that the coffee wasn’t helping. As soon as his ass hit the chair, he was back to work, typing and reading and then groaning loudly when his computer alerted him that it required a slew of updates.

UDACT had some of the most talented tech guys in the business and in order to keep up with the heavy strain of their constant research, updates and backups were somewhat constant. This particular update required Yixing’s main computer to be completely restarted and with the sheer number of changes listened in the notification, there was a good chance that this update would take hours.

Feeling a little better now that the choice was out of his hands, Yixing decided to finally call it a night. He accepted the update and hit the lights as he left his office, actually excited to crawl back into his nice, cozy bunk in the corner of Dorm A5.

He passed various labs and offices, listening to the familiar chatter and commotion of UDACT’s Princeton facility. It was the buzz of the generators and the hum of the overhead lights, the clacking of keyboard keys and the squeaking of rubber soles on pristine linoleum floors. It was Xiumin laughing loudly and Luhan lecturing anyone who entered his eye line, Jongin talking with his mouth full and the muffled sounds of someone banging on one-way glass.

It always smelled like bleach and the pine-scented air freshener that Luhan had bought in bulk to keep the holiday spirit alive year-round and despite the fact that they were understaffed, it always seemed like there was someone around with whom you could talk or collaborate.

There were a lot of flaws in UDACT’s system and while Yixing was aware of the dark, seedy underbelly of one of the only remaining corporations on earth, it was the closest thing to home he’d ever had.

And so, with his weird feelings of guilt, responsibility and impending doom lingering in the back of his mind, Yixing entered his small, symmetrical dorm and hung his lab coat on the hook beside his bed. Like the labs, the dorms didn’t have windows and so the lighting in each individual dormitory was controlled by a dimmer switch near the door. Sick of the bright, white lights that had accompanied him for more than a day, Yixing set his overhead lamp to what he considered to be “less than candlelight” and tucked himself into his twin bed without even changing his clothes.

When he shut his eyes, he tried to brainstorm. His nightly routine involved going over the next day’s itinerary and he knew that the next morning, he needed to shower and hit the gym. His mind was his biggest asset but spending so much time sitting down, hunched over his keyboard did a number on his back and joints. Lifting weights and running laps with Xiumin worked wonders on his aching body and he knew that if he wanted to really utilize his brain, he needed to work his muscles as well.

But before he could even plan what he wanted to accomplish in the weight room, Yixing was asleep, drooling onto his pillow as he melted against his mattress.

Yixing slept deeply and in a surprising twist, he even dreamt. Usually, he worked his mind so hard during the day that he had no mental energy left for the evening hours but that night, he had vivid dreams of high school basketball. Science geek that he was, Yixing had never been a gifted athlete. And despite the fact that he was probably the worst one on the team, his time playing center for the Jackson Knights had been some of the best days of his life.

Somehow, he could smell the polish of the gymnasium floor. He could feel his hands on the ball. He could taste the blue Gatorade on his tongue. And he could hear his coach’s shouting for him.

He could hear the sharp, shrill whistle.

He could hear…

Alarm bells.

Yixing was hearing alarm bells.

And someone pounding on his door.

He hopped out of bed without a second thought, switching the lights back to maximum strength before throwing open the door. Xiumin, his designated guard, was standing in the hallway, his strong arms bare and an automatic rifle in his hands.

“Sir, Professor Luhan needs to speak with you immediately,” Xiumin said. “We have a problem.”

Yixing snatched his coat from the hook and took off in a sprint after Xiumin. The alarms were still blaring but the emergency lights weren’t flashing and so Yixing figured that they were, at least for the moment, safe. The alarm was meant to get everyone’s attention but the lights were a signal to fight or flee.

People were running in and out of offices, everyone looking pale and worried.

What time was it? How long had Yixing been asleep?

He didn’t even know what the emergency was and already, Yixing was blaming himself. Maybe if he hadn’t gone to sleep, whatever was happening could have been prevented. Maybe he could have stopped it.

Luhan was in his office, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, sweating as he spoke to someone on the phone. He was pacing.

“Yes, sir,” Luhan said, holding up one finger when he saw Xiumin and Yixing. “I understand, sir. I’ll keep you updated as I learn more. Yes, I know. Goodbye, sir.” He slammed the phone down with great power, sending pieces of plastic flying to all corners of the room. “Goddamn it!”

“What is going on?” Yixing demanded. “What’s happening?” Luhan swallowed hard, his chest rising and falling with ragged, angry breaths. He glanced at Xiumin, nodding once, before looking to Yixing and licking his lips. “What the hell is it?”

“It’s Subject 117,” he said frantically. “He’s escaped.”


	4. Chapter 4

Kim Jongdae hadn’t ever been a Boy Scout but his uncle had taken him camping a few times and so he knew how to start a fire.

Eva was still in the Range Rover, doing damage control, and so dinner was up to him. Not entirely incompetent, Jongdae had stuffed an entire box with food before they’d taken off and he’d even had the foresight to pack a skillet.

They’d feast like kings on campfire-roasted baked beans and saltine crackers and wash it down with Red Bull.

Okay, so he wasn’t exactly a master chef.

He hadn’t been hired by UDACT for his culinary aptitude and before the world ended, he mostly sustained himself on takeaway pizza and Thai food. Now he had to make do with what he had. Baked beans, corned beef hash, vegetable soup, fruit cocktail. He’d completely wiped out the cupboard in the C Wing kitchen and he knew that there would be hell to pay if he ever showed his face in UDACT’s Montreal headquarters again.

But Jongdae was never going back.

He heard the car door open and then the dull sound of high heels crunching the sandy ground. Eva Taylor sat behind him, climbing up on the hood of the abandoned Honda Civic that was shielding them from the open freeway.

“How are we doing?” Jongdae asked, not looking up from the pan in his hand. He poked at their meal with a wooden spoon, wondering idly if it were possible to overcook baked beans.

“Well, Dae,” she began harshly and Jongdae could picture her scowl and the angry crease between her eyes, “it is very, very likely that we are completely and utterly fucked. I am talking up-shit-creek-without-a-paddle, completely and utterly, _royally_ fucked.”

Jongdae sighed and blew the hair out of his eyes. Setting the red-hot skillet on a patch of blacktop that looked clean enough, Jongdae rose from his squat by the fire and sauntered towards the Honda.

“I just cannot shake this feeling that you’re mad at me,” he teased. The look in Eva’s blue eyes told Jongdae that he was twice as likely to die by her hand that night than he was from UDACT or any infected masses. “Okay, so you’re mad at me. I get that.”

“Do you, Dae? _Do you_?” Her blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail, a contrast to the usual long, flowy locks that hung down her shoulders and back. She was still in her UDACT gear – tight, grey work pants and a white polo shirt with UDACT’s brand across the left breast. On her feet were a pair of high-heeled boots but Jongdae knew her current ensemble meant very little since she’d packed a bag and it was in the trunk of the Escalade. “If I didn’t think the noise would draw out the wrong kind of people, I would shoot you right in the foot.”

Jongdae smirked.

“Just in the foot? I knew you wouldn’t kill me.”

Eva scowled.

“I’ll shoot you in both feet, both hands and then finish you off, you fucking dingbat.”

Jongdae laughed out loud. To someone who didn’t know her, Eva might have appeared to be getting angrier but Dae knew that if she was getting creative with her threats, she was finally cooling off. He was so sure of it, in fact, that he left the beans to cool and joined her on the hood of the Civic.

“If I remember correctly,” he began, kicking his muddy feat up on the front bumper, “you were on board with the plan.”

“I was on board with the plan, Jongdae. The _plan_. _Our_ plan. All the shit that we decided to do three weeks ago. All of the waiting and the timing and the finding our perfect moment to strike so we could try and save the world. I was on board with _that_ plan, Dae, not waking up in the middle of a goddamn sleep shift and being tossed in the back of a stolen SUV, you stupid, fucking rat.”

Jongdae inhaled.

“Okay,” he said. “I deserve that but–”

“You’re goddamn right you deserve it.”

“–we didn’t have any time. If we didn’t leave tonight, we wouldn’t have gotten out. Period.” Eva’s eyes were fixed on the fire and Jongdae knew her mind was racing. “They moved transport up to Wednesday,” Jongdae said, lowering his voice. “If we hadn’t acted when we did, you know _exactly_ what would have happened, not just to us but to–”

The passenger’s side door to the Escalade opened and a soft voice interjected, “Can I come out of the car now?”

Jongdae swallowed hard, the lump of adrenaline in his throat making it somewhat difficult.

“Yeah,” he called back. “Come on. It’s dinnertime.”

Within a few seconds, a slight, pale teenager came around the side of the civic, his big hands stuffed in the pockets of his standard issue grey sweatpants. His hair was blonde and cropped short making him look older than he actually was but the look of terror on his face did a lot to soften his otherwise hard features.

“How do you feel?” Eva asked and the boy looked like he didn’t understand the question. “You were on some pretty powerful drugs,” she explained. “It would be okay if you were a little fuzzy or weak.”

“I’m okay,” he said quietly. “Just hungry.”

The sound of distant gunfire and muffled shouting made the boy jump but Eva and Dae hardly blinked. UDACT went to great lengths to ensure that their people were sturdy and hard-to-scare; their entire business model was contingent on stable employees that didn’t waver.

“Well,” Jongdae said as he hopped off the Civic and started back towards the fire, not missing the way the boy flinched when he passed by. Trying not to take it personally, Jongdae kneeled beside the skillet, taking it on faith that the beans were cool enough to consume. “We can’t do much on an empty stomach. Let’s eat.”

* * *

The boy ate so quickly that Jongdae had to remind him twice to slow down.

“Relax, mate,” he said, scraping a spoonful of beans in between two crackers. “Eat too fast and you’ll yack it all up.”

“Sorry,” the boy mumbled. “They didn’t let me eat much.”

Jongdae shot Eva a look, a wordless, _don’t-you-ever-tell-me-this-wasn’t-worth-the-risk_ kind of look and then stuffed his makeshift sandwich into his mouth.

“Can I ask you a question?" Jongdae asked softly.

The boy was licking the brown sugar sauce off his fork, having a steadfast intention of sucking down every last calorie the meal had to offer. Jongdae couldn’t blame him. Even with his t-shirt on, Dae could see the boy’s ribs, making him look about two missed meals away from emaciation.

“Okay,” the boy shrugged. “Hey, can I have some more?”

Eva, who was nearest to the skillet, took the boy’s bowl and filled it with another few scoops of beans and once again, Jongdae had to remind him to chew his food rather than inhale it.

“What’s your name?” Jongdae asked and the night air seemed to grow quieter. “Everyone just refers to you as Subject 117 but I’ve never heard anyone say your actual name.”

The boy’s flushed cheeks were especially noticeable because he was so pale (there wasn’t much sunlight in UDACT’s holding cells) and he fidgeted slightly where he sat on the ground.

“Huang Zitao,” he said. “But everyone calls me Tao.”

Jongdae smiled and from the corner of his eye, he swore that Eva did, too.

“Tao,” Jongdae said. Through chews, Tao cocked his head to the side, his tired eyes traveling from Jongdae to Eva and back.

“What should I call _you_?” he asked. “Doctor?”

Eva laughed out loud.

“Him?” she wheezed, jerking her thumb at Dae. “A doctor?”

Ignoring her, Jongdae said, “I’m not a doctor.”

“But you worked for those people?”

From somewhere behind them, a cricket chirped.

“Yes,” Jongdae said through gritted teeth. “At least I used to. But as an engineer, not a doctor.”

“What’s the difference?” Tao asked.

“I built machines,” he said. “Fixed things when they were broken.”

“He mostly just lazed around and took naps in the dorms,” Eva interjected.

“I fixed things,” Jongdae repeated slowly, “when they were broken. That was my job.”

And that, Jongdae thought, was precisely why he’d done what he’d done. That was why he’d made plans and packed a bag and stolen food from the gallery. That was why he’d teamed up with Eva.

That was why he’d busted Tao out of UDACT.

The Universal Disease and Catastrophe Team was broken and someone needed to fix it. Someone needed to stand up against the corporation that could only be described as the bullies of the apocalypse. Someone needed to free the seventeen-year-old boy that had been locked up behind bulletproof glass for the last six months.

And because no one else seemed to have the balls to go up against UDACT, Jongdae decided that it was going to have to be him. It was going to have to be him and Agent Eva Taylor.

The truth was that although he _was_ an engineer, Jongdae had minored in biology and when one of Montreal’s top scientists had gotten killed during an attack on the center, Dae had been called up to help study Subject 117. Having spent most of his time at UDACT in the computer lab or crawling through the boiler room with a wrench in his hand, Jongdae couldn’t have imagined the horror that came with staring at an imprisoned teenager for hours at a time.

He watched Tao pace around his dorm, looking more miserable and terrified with every passing second, and made notes about his condition. When doctors in masks stormed his room and forced him to give blood and saliva samples, Jongdae wanted to scream. Subject 117 – _Tao_ – was just a kid. Why did he have to go through such hell?

By the end of his first week in the biology department, Jongdae knew the answer.

Right around the time M51 started hitting major cities, Tao was on a school trip that took a terrible turn and made national headlines. Three different high schools had been visiting a water treatment facility when a gas leak blew the place sky high. 61 people were killed in the explosion and those who survived were rushed to the nearest hospital for treatment. 36 students ended up receiving transfusions from a mislabeled batch of M51-infected blood and within the next 24 hours, all of them had died.

Except for Tao.

Tao had received contaminated blood and lived.

M51 was coursing through his veins and Huang Zitao had never shown a single symptom.

And as soon as UDACT heard about the boy who had somehow survived being fused with Death Fever, they charged to his house in Toronto, kicked down his front door and stole him from his bedroom as his parents slept.

From what Jongdae understood, Tao’s father had woken up to the commotion and received a stun-gun blast to the chest when he tried to interfere.

Tao, like Jongdae, Eva and everyone else, had belonged to UDACT ever since.

“I’m not a doctor,” Jongdae reiterated for good measure, “but you can call me Chen.” Eva shot him a cursory glare but Dae ignored her.

“Chen,” Tao confirmed and Jongdae grinned.

“It’s an old hockey nickname,” he explained lightly, poking at the remaining beans on his plate. “I was the only Asian guy on the team and, as teenage boys do, my teammates just assumed I was Chinese and called me Chen.” A ghost of a smile graced Tao’s lips and Jongdae beamed internally. The boy was beginning to trust him. That would bode well for all of them. “It started out kind of racist but it ended up a term of endearment.”

“I played hockey, too,” Tao said.

“Oh yeah?” Jongdae was smiling outwardly now, not bothering to hide his joy. All of this had been because Dae and Eva didn’t want Tao to suffer at the hands of UDACT. They didn’t want him to be their prisoner, their test subject, their lab rat. And though Jongdae stood by his decision completely, part of him had been worried that spending so much time locked up in sterile isolation had damaged Tao irreparably. But the boy in front of him, the one sitting cross-legged on the ground with sauce on his lips, seemed a lot more well-adjusted than Dae could’ve imagined. He was skinny and hungry and scared but he seemed… okay. “What position?”

“I was a center,” Tao said. “What were you?”

“I played defense. I liked busting heads.”

“You’re built for defense,” Tao said, his mind drifting back to his days a hockey player. “You look strong. You have muscle.” Tao glanced down at his own body, frowning slightly at the sight of his frail arms. “I’m too thin.”

“That isn’t your fault,” Eva piped up. She offered him an energy drink when she passed behind him and he shook his head. “UDACT didn’t feed you very well and they didn’t let you exercise. Besides, a lot of girls like thin guys.”

“I already had a girlfriend,” Tao explained sorrowfully. “Her name was Krys.”

“Was?” Jongdae pressed before he realized that it wasn’t his place.

Tao looked up like he was surprised Dae could ask such a thing.

“Well she’s dead, right? I mean, everyone is. How many people are alive outside that facility? How many people are alive outside of–?” He hesitated. “Is there anyone left outside of UDACT?” He grimaced slightly like he didn’t like the taste of UDACT’s name on his tongue.

Jongdae and Eva exchanged a hard stare, neither knowing to say next and each trying to will the other to speak first.

“People are alive,” Jongdae spat eventually, deciding to wing it. Honesty was the best policy, especially if he was trying to gain Tao’s trust. “I don’t know how many people are still around and the number is certainly a lot less than it was before all of this happened. But people are alive. Krys could be alive. Your parents could be alive. Your coach, your teammates, your friends. They might be okay.”

“You have to have faith, Tao,” Eva said. “Otherwise this new world will beat you down.”

“And we didn’t break you out of that hellhole just for life to kick your ass,” Jongdae teased.

"Can I ask _you_ a question?” Tao inquired after he’d finished the last bite of food. “Why _did_ you break me out of there?”

Jongdae sighed heavily, his chest tightening with the realization that he was actually _in_ this moment. He was really living the plan he’d constructed weeks before. He was really on the side of a Canadian highway, eating stolen canned food and staring at Subject 117 who was sitting almost contentedly in the dirt. The world had ended, he’d been strong-armed into working for a money-hungry biomedical corporation and forced to take part in the inhumane imprisonment of a teenage boy.

“It wasn’t fair what they were doing to you,” Jongdae said softly. “I may have worked for them but I didn’t agree with what they did. Neither did Eva.” On the other side of the fire, Eva nodded solemnly. She was a bit of a hardass, not to mention a grade-A ball-buster, but she wasn’t cruel and she couldn’t stomach what UDACT was capable of any more than Jongdae could. “We needed to get out and it was only fair that we took you with us.”

“So you’re the good guys?” Tao asked, sounding almost suspicious as his tired eyes narrowed. With a full stomach and his first taste of freedom in months, Jongdae was certain that Tao’s mind was beginning to clear. He was thinking less like a hostage and more like a logical teenage boy and he was, understandably, wary of the people who’d stolen him from his bed and brought him to the side of the freeway for beans and small talk.

“We _are_ the good guys, Tao,” Eva said gently and Jongdae had ever heard her sound so soft and kind before. “I know it’s hard to believe. You’ve been through a lot. But we’re on your side.”

“How do I know?” Tao said. “How do I know for sure?”

Jongdae licked his lips. Tao was smart and after the time he’d spent with UDACT, Jongdae understood his need to be cautious. For Tao to understand that he was no longer under UDACT’s control, for him to truly feel that he was free, Jongdae and Eva needed to give him real freedom.

“Hold on a second,” Jongdae said. He retreated to the Escalade, popping open the glove compartment to reveal an array of goodies stolen from one of UDACT’s storage facilities. Tucked beneath a stack of maps, a hunting knife and a can of bug spray was what Jongdae wanted. He snatched it up and shut the car door behind him, heading back towards the fire with a certain spring in his step. “Here you go,” he said and slapped a .44 Magnum down in Tao’s palm.

“What’s this for?” Tao asked, his voicing cracking with what Jongdae guessed might be fear.

“We’re armed,” Jongdae admitted with a shrug. Eva was eying him but she didn’t look the least bit surprised and Jongdae figured she would have suggested the same course of action to make Tao feel like an equal. “You should be, too. Because the three of us, Tao? We’re partners now. And if we’re in trouble, you should be able to help out.”

“Alternatively,” Eva snorted, “if you decide we can’t be trusted, you should be able to _take_ us out.”

Jongdae smirked.

“That, too.”

“Okay,” Tao said after a pause that felt days long. “That’s fair.”

Jongdae shot Eva a reassuring smile (realistically, Tao could have shot them both and taken off in the Escalade – there _were_ bullets in the gun after all) and then breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

“Alright,” Jongdae said. “I think it’s time for bed.”

* * *

Tao was asleep in the back row of the Escalade before his head even hit the jacket he was using as a pillow.

Eva had finally changed into the clothes she’d packed – cargo pants, a grey t-shirt and black running shoes – and was sitting with Jongdae on the bumper of the Escalade. Neither said a word and it wasn’t for lack of things to discuss. But after the last few hours they’d had, it was downright comforting to revel in the silence.

As a teenager, Jongdae used to walk for miles almost every night. A natural insomniac, Dae liked to kill time by exploring his neighborhood and enjoying the night. He’d walked through parks and plazas and even walked along major roads, soaking in the sounds of the highway and the pleasing aesthetic of bright headlights against the dark evening.

But now there was nothing. No sights, no sounds, no cars on the road, no signs of life anywhere. Just dead air and mutual understanding between partners.

The night had gone better than expected. They’d gotten Tao out of UDACT, they’d lifted at least a few days’ worth of supplies and none of them had gotten shot. All things considered, it had been a pretty good day.

“Where do we go next?” Eva asked finally.

“Pennsylvania,” Jongdae said with an exhale and Eva raised an eyebrow like she hadn’t expected such a quick response. “What? I’ve studied the maps and I paid attention during meetings.” He shifted where he sat. “There should be a disaster relief center near Pittsburgh.”

“And you don’t think UDACT will find us there?”

Jongdae shook his head.

“UDACT never gave a damn about refugee centers, especially the privately funded ones. They didn’t even pay attention to how government aid was distributed. It’s not something they follow.”

“But you do?”

“Of course,” he said plainly. “I follow everything.” From somewhere across the way, Jongdae thought he heard wings flapping, a bat or maybe a bird, but it was possible he’d imagined it. “We should get some sleep.”

“You’re probably right,” Eva said and Jongdae gasped dramatically.

“I’m sorry, I’m _what_? Did you just say I’m right?”

Groaning and pushing herself off the front of the truck, Eva said, “Can it, Dae. I’m still pissed at you for blowing the plan.”

“Get over it, blondie,” he mumbled, holding out his hand so she could help pull him to his feet.

“I’m sure you’ll make it up to me,” she said before climbing into the Escalade and getting cozy in one of the seats in the second row.

Jongdae laughed, mostly because Eva was funny but also because he wanted to contribute something – some spirit, some spark, some _life_ – to the night.

“Oh, I’m sure I will.”


End file.
